My piece on Xinjiang, in The New York Times (Chinese Web)

This was the last journey I took in China–one that I thought about for a long time but lacked the courage to go on until my last month. Xinjiang is a beautiful place, a silk road hub that’s historically been the crossroads of multiple religions and ethnicities, and it’s a very controversial place in China right now. There is a lot of stigma against Uyghurs and the region. I had been told since pretty much my first week in China to stay away because it was “dangerous.” But how much of that is muddled information, how much truth, and what’s life like for the 40% Han Chinese population in the region?